Abstract
Neuroscientific studies in the field of creativity mainly focused on tasks drawing on basic verbal divergent thinking demands. This study took a step further by investigating brain mechanisms in response to other types of creative behavior, involving more “real-life” creativity demands in the context of emotion regulation and well-being. Specifically, functional patterns of EEG alpha activity were investigated while participants were required to generate as many and as different ways as possible to reappraise presented anger-eliciting situations in a manner that reduces their anger. Cognitive reappraisal involves some of the same cognitive processes as in conventional verbal creativity tasks, inasmuch as it requires an individual to inhibit or disengage from an emotional event, to shift attention between different perspectives, and to flexibly adopt new solutions. To examine whether alpha oscillations during cognitive reappraisal are different from those during conventional creative ideation, the EEG was also assessed during performance of the Alternative Uses task, requiring individuals to generate as many and as original uses of an object as possible. While cognitive reappraisal was associated with a similar pattern of alpha power as observed in conventional verbal creative ideation, the former yielded significantly stronger alpha power increases at prefrontal sites, along with lower alpha increases at more posterior cortical sites, indicating higher cognitive control and less spontaneous imaginative thought processes in the generation of effective strategies to regulate an ongoing negative emotional state.
Highlights
There is an increasing interest in the neuroscientific study of creativity
Cognitive reappraisal was generally associated with a similar pattern of alpha oscillations as observed in conventional verbal creative ideation
This was apparent in the finding that both the Reappraisal Inventiveness Test (RIT) and the alternative uses task (AUT) exhibited comparatively strong increases in alpha power at prefrontal sites
Summary
There is an increasing interest in the neuroscientific study of creativity. The emergence of ever more sophisticated psychometric research approaches, along with advanced neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) or the analysis of event-related (de)synchronization of brain activity in the electroencephalogram (EEG), have yielded valuable insights into potential brain correlates underlying various creativity-related demands (e.g., Fink & Benedek, 2014; Gonen-Yaacovi et al, 2013). This task requires an individual to flexibly adopt and to generate new perspectives, solutions, or strategies, accompanied by overcoming and inhibiting the typical and most obvious response elicited by this situation (i.e., experience of anger) Such flexible idea production is likewise seen in many creativity-related task demands and, performance in the RIT has been found to be significantly associated with conventional divergent thinking measures and with the personality dimension of openness that is closely linked to creativity (Weber et al, 2014).
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